


Conduction

by Doodled93, XPerimental



Series: XPeri Fanfiction [8]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddles, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Geraskier Week, M/M, Protection, Sharing Body Heat, Snow, Soft Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, like a crazy person, there's a storm, there's also some legit information on treating hypothermia thanks to doodle, who apparently camps in the winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22766854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodled93/pseuds/Doodled93, https://archiveofourown.org/users/XPerimental/pseuds/XPerimental
Summary: There's a snowstorm, and Bards don't hold heat the same way Witchers do.There is a (cuddly) solution.Geraskier Week day 3: Protection
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: XPeri Fanfiction [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626796
Comments: 13
Kudos: 502





	Conduction

**Author's Note:**

> This is cutting it close!!! But we made it! Happy Feb16th, and day 3 of 2020's Geraskier Week!

The storm as it comes is not a surprise—it had been threatening and picking up since yesterday. Geralt had known from the start they wouldn’t make it to the next town in time. Jaskier had known, too—he could tell by the fact that the bard kept hypothesizing that, with a frankly _unlikely_ amount of luck, they may yet beat the storm.

“The next town is four, five days you said? If we make it four, and maybe find an _as yet unknown_ shortcut, that may cut it down to three.”

Geralt had hummed, watching Jaskier squint at the grey clouds, hands on his hips.

“Maybe if the wind stays at our backs we may travel at speed, cut it down to a further two _and a half_ days…”

“The wind would have to push us off this mountain.”

“Why _yes_ , Geralt, that is _one_ way to look at it. Now then, two and a half days, well, two and a half days is _nothing_. The storm may not be that bad, you know? Despite all the,” he gestures, and he could mean the grey sky, the cold wind, the chill in the air, the darkness in the distance. “Well, you know _all this_. Could push through this _grey_ and, ah, _wind_ , and I bet at a good speed we could be only _two days_ away from the next town… in fact,” Jaskier strode forward, arms sweeping ahead with flair, “ _in fact_ this wind is nothing! One might imagine that there might not _be_ — _ah_ , fuck!”

The wind picked up, then, and Geralt is smirking when Jaskier is shuffling back to Roach, arms tucked back to his sides, hands under his armpits.

“ _Well_ then,” Jaskier nudges into Geralts leg. “Four or five days to a town when there’s a storm like this brewing isn’t as impossible as one might expect, you know. I mean, it’s not entirely impossible we might encounter a… portal, of some sort. One we could reasonably and reliably assume would bring us, say, even a _days’_ ride away from the next town, and we’d certainly beat the storm with that sort of time on our hands.”

“And I’m sure you could recognize one such a portal, as well as the location it would bring us to?”

“Ah,” the man looks off to the side of the path, humming in a considering manner. “I… I _do_ have many skills, as you well know. While _that_ is not one of them—that I _know of_ —it’s not unreasonable to assume that there are some skills I do _not_ yet know of, but am perhaps born with. Perhaps I’m also a man with the skills to unconsciously put off very bad storms until after four or five days?”

“I suppose we’ll see.”

It would perhaps be annoying, all this hypothesizing, if the bard didn’t come up with consistently _different_ ridiculous ways they might escape the inevitable. He’s been writing an ongoing _maybe-it-would_ song for the past three years now, with familiar verses repeated with every bit of bad weather they encounter, the tune catchy even without an instrument. A quick beat to walk to, steps naturally falling in quick-time.

It’s not something Geralt has heard at a tavern, yet, so it likely hadn’t reached some milestone of completion Jaskier had set in that fool head of his—some of his songs were done in days or weeks, fine tuned to an audience well oiled with alcohol.

Then some of his songs, like this one, were worked over the course of months and years; Geralt could admit that the one about the nightwraith was both factually correct and catchy, but if he got it stuck in his head _one more time…_

The sky got steadily darker as more verse was added to the song, Jaskier repeating the established bits he’d gotten down the last time they’d been caught out in an awful rain storm. Geralt had caught two rabbits and a grouse in the meantime, hanging them from his saddle.

_It could be the wind will come sweep us ahead_

_Skip days of this trudge—off some cliff, and we’re dead!_

_The clouds are so dark who’s to say night or noon_

_To be out in this cold must be truly a l-loon!_

_The d-damp it sinks in, soaking deep in my cl-lothing_

_So s-soggy I ssay, soon a Drowner be roaming—_

“No,” Jaskier interrupted himself, shaking his head and following to where Geralt was leading off the edge of the path, only barely visible in the snow. “N-no, it’s no longer happy maybe’s, I’m afraid this bit of lyric has gotten away from me.”

Geralt got off Roach and led the two further off the path, listening to the faint whistling of the wind against an opening.

“You know, I don’t suppose it’d be very, ah, _good_ to put the thought of a drowner d-down ones pants either, so—ah! A c-cave! Are we certain that it’s an unoc-c-cupied one?”

Geralt led Roach into the protection the cave’s narrow opening offered, checking the ground just beyond there for any recent markings. Theirs were the only tracks leading in or out of the cave, and that meant exactly nothing with this type of wind.

He checks deeper into the cave and finds nothing but dried brush blown in form years past and old, old bones. He comes back to a shivering bard and the beginnings of a puddle from where Roach shook off snow.

“Hmm.”

“Oh th-thank f-fuck.”

Geralt humms again and heads back out into the blistering cold and wind, heading further into the scrub and trees in a hunt for wood that should still be fairly dry—there was snow, yes, but with the sudden cold snap he’s hoping there’ll be enough just encrusted with snow that they can get a decent fire started.

He brings back what he finds that’s dry, nodding when he finds that Jaskier’s already looked after Roach, her things laid out over one of the rocks, her coat tended to, and sets his pile down next to where Jaskier is setting up rocks for a pit. Heads back out for more wood to put in a pile to dry out.

By the time he’s done Jaskier is still shivering, but has managed to coax a fire into existence; Geralt sees a pile of the dry brush from further in the cave in a heap to the side, more tinder should the fire get low.

They divide preparing the rabbits and cooking in relative silence, Jaskier’s shivering abating to a fine tremor. It’s never completely silent around Jaskier; even now the bard was peering at where he had set his lute, case protecting the instrument form the cold and damp. He’s humming, low and melodious, and every time he glances to his lute he’s flexing his too-pale fingers, and then putting them closer to the fire. Geralt doesn’t recognize the tune. They eat in that same relative silence, colour returning to the bards cheeks... the shivering doesn’t go away.

“Take off your jacket.”

“T-that—oh.”

Jaskier had looked up with a frown that cleared at the sight of Geralt pulling open his own jacket, undoing the ties. Jaskiers hands are still stiff even after the warm meal and the fire, so in the time it takes him to wrestle off his jacket Geralt has his open and has moved to open his bedroll close to the fire. Has pulled both their blankets nearby.

When Jaskier finally frees his last arm from the damp clutch of his sleeve, he seems surprised when Geralt plucks it from his hands, draping it over one of the rocks near the fire.

“D-d-damn it Geralt h-humans need a b-bit more than th-that... w-what are you d-doing?”

It takes very little effort to pull the shivering bard down into his lap and arranging stiff limbs to his satisfaction—tucking his arms into the warm cocoon within his jacket, and using one hand to pull that hunched back into his chest. Geralt arranged the blankets around them and over Jaskiers legs until just his feet were out, propped next to the fire, and pulled the rest around them into a barrier against the cold.

Having access to warmth seems to make Jaskiers shivering worse, chattering teeth just a mess of sound rather than any words Geralt could actually pick out. He hummed in response anyway, and that seemed to satisfy the bard that he was heard enough to settle down in Geralts lap.

That didn’t stop the humming from coming back—Geralts sigh at the sound only has Jaskier wiggling back even further, tilting and turning his head until it was pressed back to Geralts shoulder, and Jaskier was pressing a cold nose to his jaw. The humming was clearer, louder, and Geralt could feel a smile pressed against his neck.

He adjusts how Jaskier is sitting and happens to give him a _squeeze_ , coincidentally pushing all the air from him and halting the noise, if only temporarily—when it starts up again it sounds distinctly fond pressed up against his skin.

The things he does for his bard.

X

Geralt has slipped into a meditative state by the time he realizes that the humming has petered out into even breathing, Jaskier having curled further in his embrace, face tucked into the hollow of his throat.

He’s been adding to the fire as needed, an ear to the howl of the wind—listening for the howl of anything else on the wind.

He’s not looking forward to hearing about a cricked neck from Jaskier however, and makes the decision to shift him; using one arm to prop him and the other to swing his legs first to the side, and then further manoeuvring him around...

Once the hard part is done, Jaskier adjusts himself well enough, tucking his face back into Geralts neck with a sigh, arms going around him and hands up his shirt to press against his warm back. It takes a bit of shuffling but the Bard settles more into his lap, seemingly happy enough to wrap his legs around behind him. Geralt readjusts the blankets to be sure that Jaskier is entirely covered in this new position straddling his lap, and settles back down to monitor the fire.

This new position means that along with not kinking Jaskiers neck, with them belly to belly like this it should keep Jaskiers neck, belly, and groin warm enough to not be damaged by the cold. In the morning he’d leave him on the bedroll to see if he couldn’t find more wood and possibly hunt something else to tide them through until the storm has fully passed. Until then he’d enjoy the rare quiet, arms holding his bard close.

**Author's Note:**

> TBH this started as Doodles idea and now we're semi-thinking of continuing this another chapter or two-- if you're interested you can follow this story in particular, not likely going to be separate 'series'  
> (Xperi: This also feels like a cheat as I was also prompted more Soft Geralt on tumblr, so.... yeah. *shrugs*)  
> @Doodled93 and @Xperiwrites for tumblr if you'd like to find us, and re: warming up a companion:  
> If someone is suffering form extreme cold you should ideally apply heat compresses (or a Witcher) around the neck, torso, and groin/between thighs and don't go rubbing their arms and such-- that'll just push the cold from their arms to their heart. Other good things: get them something warm to eat/drink, try not to give them anything that might burn them, and don't immediately strip naked for your own Sharing Body Heat fic.


End file.
